So I got down to the store for the first time in ages, and played 2 games. The first game involved me playing against the best painted Cryx army this side of the Equator. Seriously, have a look.
http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?169681-Weierdo-s-Painting-Log-(the-start-of-my-new-cryx-army). Sadly I didn't take any notes or pictures, because, well, I have no idea why. But you can still see his army! I did for the second game though. The pictures won't be super good, but hey, I'll improve. But anyway, the first game.
His list was;
Terminus
-Deathripper
Min Bile Thralls
Max Bane Thralls with
UA
Bane Lord Tartarus
Withershadow Combine
My list was;
pIrusk
-Juggernaut
-Sylys
Max Iron Fang Pikemen with regular
UA
Iron Fang Kovnik
Max Winter Guard Infantry with
UA
Kovnik Joe
It ended up with Terminus on armour 30 something, and me with Irusk, one Iron Fang, the Winterguard standard bearer and Sylys. And he was going to get a boost to his armour next turn from some corrosion damage that happened in my maintenance phase. And Terminus was about 3" from Irusk, so I called it there.
I thought I had made a good move getting some of my Iron Fangs into combat with the Biles from their minifeat (after killing a bunch of banes) to hold them up, but the bane officer and standard cut them down easily and then biles purged basically all of my fangs, tartarus and terminus ate the juggernaut, withershadow, more biles and an annihilation from tartarus the turn before destroyed the winterguard...I asked another guy who was there how I could have done better and he said I should have used the solid shot blunderbuss attack to try to kill biles so they couldn't rack up the souls. Makes sense, note stored for next time. It was over in three turns and it was really quick, hence my somewhat hazy recollection. But oh well, check out his painting thread on here I linked earlier. Dooo iiiit.
Ok so the second report was against my arch enemy...whose name I haven't asked for after playing him the last two times I've been there. I really need to correct that. We'll use a placeholder name...the most common Australian baby name of 2012, Oliver. Hopefully that isn't rude...anyway. The objectives were Megalith (his one) and a Juggernaut (my one). It wasn't confusing in the least, because he only had wolf warbeasts, no construct ones.
His list included
eKaya, the crazy forest witch herself
-Druid Wilder
-Laris
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Pureblood Warpwolf
-Feral Warpwolf (I think I see a theme developing here)
Min Skinwalkers with
UA (yep, definitely getting a sense of something)
Lord of the Feast (he eats units, so he's almost a wolf, he counts)
Druids of Orboros with
UA (they are the ones who become wolves, no?)
Shifting Stones with
UA (ok less of a sense)
Gallows Grove (yeah...not a wolf. But he, 7/11 is still pretty wolfy)
I've never had the pleasure of playing
eKaya, but I've heard about all sorts of fun games that she loves to play, like yoyos! I loved yoyos as a kid! But I could never get the string to untangle so they would inevitably end up in the growing pile of shattered dreams and knotted string.
My list was
eCaine, the man with the golden machine guns
-Squire (boop)
-Centurion
Madelyn Corbeau
Reinholdt and his bowler
Arlan Strangeways (has anyone made a model of him riding a bomb waving a hat?)
Journeywoman Warcaster
-Hunter
eEiryss (last three times I've used her I've interfered with my own technology...let's see what happens!)
Average-to Tepid Gun Mages with
UA (most disappointing unit of 2013, at least my lot are)
-Defender
Greygore Boomhowler & Co.
I had 2 choices making their debuts on my side of the table this game, Greygore & Co., those ferocious drunks and Madelyn, that saucy minx, so I was really interested to see how they played. These guys are unpainted sadly, uni is all over me like a tie pilot on an old x wing.
Yes that works, be quiet.
So we played Incoming (I think we just rolled
2D6 to pick the mission) and I won the roll to go first but asked him to. I reasoned to myself why walk all the way to him carrying my bullets, when he can just bring his flesh to my bullets himself? It was either that or I wanted my table side so I didn't have to move...one's memory of events gets so fuzzy after time has passed (3 hours or so).
So he deployed his forces. Warning, these photos are my first attempt at battle report photos, so they probably leave a lot to be desired, but all I can do is improve, so have faith. And I do turn the flash off eventually...
Anyway, my opponent's forces, arrayed for battle in all of their wolfy (and stony and tree-y, never let it be said that I ignored the inanimate objects) glory. Heavy hitters, well, everywhere. But particularly on the left and centre (from my point of view of course, since I am the most important).
I then deployed my lot of ruffians on the left, fumblewits on the right, and hardcore attempted-baby/child/teenager murderers (for the good of the country of course) in the centre.
And with that, we were off!
Ollie ran most of his models up. Kaya gave all of her battlegroup stealth. Seriously who designed that rule. She also gave the Feral Forced Evolution.
The druids advanced and did all sorts of shenanigans; smoke clouds on most of them, no magic for something like 9" and no elemental damage barring corrosion, which I have heaps of as Cygnar...right?
Deciding to stop picking at flowers, because that's all he ever really wanted for his life, Caine wandered forwards with his posse, arcing a spell into the Stalker for 2 damage to the 6. I was so excited that I had forgotten to put True Sight on him first, but my opponent graciously let me mulligan that so I could do it. Arcane Shield went on Greygore and co. who got the 4+ Tough call and ran forwards into the zone a bit (that Stalker doesn't have pathfinder to just charge over that wall, right? Ha...). The Hunter tries to take a shot at the skinwalkers but I'm a little out. I love that jack but for some reason I keep imagining it has a heavy barrel for range. It really doesn't. His owner followed along, tripping and stumbling over the foliage. Definitely not a druid.
My
ATGM run up behind the wall on their side, as does the Defender and Arlan. Then
eEiryss... doesn't end up within 5" of the Defender. I remembered! Oh frabjous day, calooh calay. I didn't chortle though. Don't want to seem odd. You know what is interesting? Just how far you can get by being placed within 8" as opposed to completely within 8". Anyway with that my turn ended and it was back to Ollie.
Back to my opponent! Sadly I missed taking pictures of his turn (go me) but everyone is pretty much where they are when it comes to the pictures for my turn, so bear with me. He upkeeps both of his spells and we are off.
With a hiss and a pop (at least that's how I imagine it) his stones teleported his pureblood over towards my gun mages, who managed to position a spray covering two of the Average-to Tepid Gun Mages and the
UA, and proceed to flub all three to hit rolls. He needed 8's, but had put himself outside of his forcing range.
He arced Dog Pile, up there for the best named spell, into the Boomies through the evil tree, before feating and charging his Stalker in. He was in reach of two of them and the Centurion. He killed the first, but three Toughs from the second boomie put a big hold on the otherwise smashy(
tm) beast putting too much damage onto my Centurion. He still ended up knocking out the spear arm (bummer, why not the movement?) and dinging the 3rd column with two attacks. Then 'poof' he disappeared from where I was getting ready to kill him (I think, wasn't 100% how to do that with a damaged centurion) and ended up beside Kaya.
His druids advanced and popped more smoke, blocking off his whole centre. The Lord of the Feast shot a boomie and jumped into range of Boomhowler himself and another of his company. He murderised the poor mook, but only did three damage to Boomhowler (even with a boosted roll from the soul of the first).
My turn (with pictures so you can sort of see where he was...sort of)
eCaine pulls from the Squire, Arcane Shield is upkept, as is True Shot.
My Defender gets power boosted by Arlan, who advances and sprays the Pureblood (not that it matters for the spray, but being outside of control he had no stealth either). Miss. The Defender shoots with Critical Brutal, boosting to hit with Arlan's focus. 5,5,6. Nice, and a crit. Boosted damage with the jack marshal's ability (so 4 dice damage) sees the Pureblood take 18 damage, ruining its body and mind. Eiryss, that crazy elf, plinks another off its spirit. Again she didn't interfere with my technology. I'm on a roll!
The
ATGM shoot and...fall on the side of tepid. All aiming, 2 hits (needed 5's and a 4) with crit brutal saw no crits and no damage. Well that was definitely channelling all the
raw fury of the tempest right there. As I play more you'll see that this is a trend with my
ATGM, unless something changes dramatically from how the rest of the year has gone. Their marshalled jack is off the chain, but they just...meh. Anyway.
Reinholdt runs over and gives Caine a rusty old pistol . This is how I see the reload, it's a random pistol that he dumps after using it, and Reinholdt just has a whole belt of them. Or maybe they are hidden under his hat...who knows. I do know that I doubt Caine would give him a bunch of the reloads for his precious Spellstorms though, on the off chance he needs them. Anyway. The Centurion trundles forwards and says 'don't charge me, please'. And everyone listened to him. Corbeau runs up behind him. As you can tell, I really don't know how to use her, but I figured she should live hiding behind the jack, and it would stop the druids pushing him out of the zone, the rude individuals that they are. Speaking of rude individuals, Caine goes to town and kills the Lord of the Feast with 2 shots after missing him horribly with what I can only assume was Reinholdt's capgun, which hit Boomhowler but failed to hurt him (phew). He also drops 4 druids, who fail their
CMD of 10. My opponent was not impressed.
Speaking of impressed, see those boomies? They activated before Caine and company, and did a few damage to the Lord of the Feast, killed two Skinwalkers in combat and finished off the Skinwalker
UA who had been damaged by the Hunter. What a great first charge in their debut, right?
So now it's my opponents turn 3, and he thinks he sees an opening. Upkeeping Forced Evolution and dropping Shadow Pack he uproots the gallows grove and moves closer to my caster. He advances Kaya to near the druid overseer and tries to arc a boosted Dog Pile onto Caine. He says that if it hits, he'll probably be in range to charge something, so I crossed my fingers and... he missed (phew) but tries again so my fingers recross...but he misses again, and that burns through all of his fury. I breathe again. His Skinwalker, in a fit of grumpiness, murders a Boomie and makes another tough. His druids rally.
His wilder jogs over to be nearer the Pureblood. The big white wolfy advances and, after forcing to regenerate and heal 1 to its mind, and tries to blow the
ATGM's house down. It kills two of them and damages the objective for 4 health.
Finally in the centre, the stonekeeper advances to beside the objective, blocking
LOS to Kaya, and tries to float an AOE onto Caine. Right direction but he only got a 1 for distance so it fell short. Stones moved forwards a bit too.
My Turn 3 now. I upkept Arcane Shield and pulled one from the squire. I took my 3" move from Madelyn (I actually got to do this in my first game with her, hooray!) on Caine but he still couldn't aim..by about half an inch/an inch. Booo.
The remaining
ATGM shoot with aiming snipe shots at the druid overseer and the stonekeeper, 2 of them hitting (needing 6's and 5's from memory) and killing them with the damage rolls, hitting an 8 both times which was exactly what I needed. The Defender got power boosted by Arlan (who missed the Pureblood again) then advanced and we thought he had
LOS, so he took a shot at Kaya. 5,5,6 saw another critical hit, and 4 dice damage at dice +1 equalled 18 damage. Seriously, I'm starting to think of the
ATGM as a tax for a warjack that rolls amazingly. I know it's not logical, but hey, I'm not a logical guy. But upon reviewing it we weren't 100% that he had
LOS, so we 1-3 that he didn't, 4-6 he did, it came up nope so we just 'pretended' that he shot Laris instead (same armour, 5,5,6 wasn't missing anything). All good, I still had Caine.
Boomies try to end the last skinwalker but can't do it. The Hunter tried to take a shot at Kaya now she was open, but missed woefully.
It was left up to Mr-drinks-a-lot, and he went at it with a vengeance. He feated, fired two shots into the gallows grove and one into the objective, before pouring fire into Kaya. An unlucky miss saw it come down to the last shot to finish her off, but he managed (just), for a Cygnar win and, in my opinion, the best of my pictures (still blurry, but down in the action so a bit cooler).
All in all a good game, my opponent was a nice guy letting me take back some things (like my silly error with Caine's spell order early on) and another thing that I can't remember but I definitely had a second mulligan...I think. Somewhere. I was lucky to kill her, because he would have destroyed Caine next turn, without a shadow of a doubt.
ATGM were still the biggest let down for me, Boomhowlers being the surprising stars with the Defender a close second, and yeah. It was good fun, I can't wait to play more games at 50 points.
